Wanderlust
by fan-nerd
Summary: Spock's calculations led him to a man he scarcely recognized in his age. Kirk's initial curiosity and further exploration led them both to worlds where they were something they were not in their own. Kirk/Spock.
1. Peregrinate

**A/N**: I have dreamt of four different Kirk/Spock stories in the last week. This one happened to have affected my heart the most, so my grasping attempt to pen it (or rather, type) is here. This piece will be around 4-5 chapters, each chapter anywhere from 3k-5k. They will be released one week apart from each other, and the whole thing is finished, so no worries about dropping it. Very light romance this chapter, ergo, no huge warning—there will be explicit m/m relations in later chapters, hence the rating.

Please enjoy!

* * *

_**Wanderlust**_

* * *

I: Peregrinate

"_Not all those who wander are lost."_

-J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Fellowship of the Ring_

* * *

"Well," An old man reclined on a sofa spoke to his unexpected guest. "This is quite the surprise."

The tall man stands, absolutely bewildered. None of the surroundings are familiar, after all, so he begins to assess his situation with a smidgeon of worry. His ears are pointed—the man on the couch does not seem altogether concerned about this, so his kind must be at least physically recognizable, in this corner of the universe. Still, hostility is to be expected in unknown territory, and he feels as though his leader would be rather cross with him for his solitary adventuring, blue eyes flaring, shoulders bunched up, as if to say _I told you so_.

"Do not be alarmed," The old man, his fleeting and wiry white hair complimenting his wrinkled smile, uses a patient voice, as though talking to an animal or a small child. "I am a friend. Oh, and just in case—English, standard, translator, if you please." Technology whirrs, and even though the room was decorated in antiques of their era, it seems that this place is not so far behind in advancement. Perhaps it is the man's peculiarity, the taller male thinks.

"There is no need for an artificial translator," Dark eyebrows quirk under the hood of his bowled haircut, exponentially curious as to the identity of this man, although his whirring mind has conjured up at least fifteen different possibilities. "English standard is one of my two native languages." With a momentary pause, he continues speaking, loading one question into his mouth before he can stop its' escape. "If this is an advanced culture, why would one rely on the relics of the past? The waste of such flora must certainly be detrimental to the environment, and, as I am sure you are aware, spectacles, even in this time, are becoming rather outdated."

A twinkle shines in his frosted blue eyes, and the old man chuckles, adjusting his sweater. "You didn't think that, perhaps, if we are so advanced, that maybe we have found a way to sustain our ecology rapidly, or wear such things for fashion?"

The other man has the decency to twitch a bit, feeling embarrassed behind his frigid exterior of inexpression. "I did consider this possibility."

"Oh, don't be so worried about my harmless teasing. I'm getting rather tired of putting this farce up, after all," The elderly man springs up with more agility than the half-Vulcan would have attributed him, given his assumed age—determined by the wrinkles around his eyes, and the spattering of freckles and burns around his fingers. "If I know you half as well as I think you do—which, by the way, is more than you probably think—you're overworked, and undernourished. Any logical arguments against grabbing a bite to eat?"

"I must return to my ship at once, if there is some means of doing so, given the advanced technology of this planet and time—" The commander starts, and the old man laughs as though he's heard a fantastic sort of cosmic joke.

"Don't worry. Even if you hang around here for a few days, I'll have you back before your crew starts to panic. Relax," He chuckles, eyes inviting. With that matter taken care of, he cocks his hand on his hip and offers him an almost flirtatious wink. "So, dinner?"

.x.

At the quaint little family-owned number, everyone seems to know this old man, and they are justifiably curious about the stranger he's got in his wake. "Hey," He nods at the waitress, and smiles upon finding a familiar face. "You said you wouldn't be in town until Tuesday!"

The man, more elderly than his host, smirks wryly. "Well, when someone sends you a message like that in the middle of the day, it's hard to ignore. Especially when that someone is _you_," This other man jokes, and they share familiar laughter. Their alien guest does not feel so much left out as he does lost. "Somethin' tells me you haven't told him the whole truth yet."

"I'm having fun playing this guessing game," His old host is very wily and somewhat shrewd, the Vulcan decides with a dry, internalized humor. He does not find this aforementioned 'guessing game' very amusing; also, he has since limited his fifteen original identities down to three. "In my defense, he made fun of my book collection."

"That's because it's ridiculous," This man's drawl is distinct, despite the years, and then his suspicions are confirmed.

"Doctor McCoy," He breathes the name as something closer to a question than an assured statement.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," McCoy quips back, just as snide and temperamental as always. "Blood still pumps red, and long as my heart's workin' alright, guess that's who'll always be."

The youngest of the men bristles somewhat, realizing the barb laced into his speech, a common attack the Chief Medical Officer he is distinctly more familiar with tosses his way quite often. Turning to the man across from McCoy, he can't help sounding a bit breathless as he goes on to announce, "This leads me to believe that you are none other than—"

"Oh hush, don't ruin the surprise just yet," The wily host smiles, and he wonders why he had not eliminated the other two possibilities yet. It is so glaringly obvious, now, that he has always been _him_. "So boys, what're we having?"

"I dunno, maybe our young friend here might not want what we old men eat," McCoy snarks. "Something tells me that Mister Spock here wasn't lured into this diner to eat that fine old slop you call mashed potatoes and gravy."

"Geez, Bones, tell us how you really feel," His host quips back, rather boyish in tone, as he folds his wrinkled, freckled hands over the table. "Nah, just something I had a hand in making last night. I think he'll really like it."

"Well, hell if I'm promisin' to eat it—your cookin's fine, you baby," The good doctor hurries to placate him with a grumble after seeing those baby blues falter in their pleasant humor for a moment. "But if _he's_ gonna eat it, somethin' tells me it's gonna be nasty."

Spock, meanwhile, feels the conversation happening around him as though in a distant blur. Through some strange part of fate, he is very far from what he had only recently learned to call home—the Enterprise that was. For whatever reason, this mishap had not only hurtled him through time, but also seemed to have displaced him in another universe. This version of his Captain did not seem in any way affiliated with Starfleet, but knew him all the same, and the technology was remarkably parallel to what was common in his own time, albeit factoring in a further fifty-some years of advancement.

The word fate felt remarkably astute, in such an instance. By the time he'd finished sorting some of his thoughts out, there was the rustling of fabric where old, but distinctly familiar, fingers came to rest on his stiff shoulder. Behind his glasses, aged blue eyes glimmered with concern. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, Captain," He answers without much thought, and immediately regrets this slip, because it results in the laughter of both the old men.

"Captain, he says," McCoy murmurs, sipping at a cup of water, his barking laugh having left his throat dry. The man with Vulcan heritage feels as though he will flush bright colors right then, but his pushes emotions down very strongly instead. "When was the last time you got called that, Jim?"

"God, fifteen, maybe twenty years ago," The man who can be no other than James T. Kirk smiles at the memory. "Try retired _Admiral_, Mister Spock."

"Retired?" Spock is completely unsurprised by the promotion—he has long believed that his young Captain was destined for greatness, and had no doubt that Kirk could have not only been Admiral, but head of the very Council for the Federation, if he so desired.

"Diplomacy was lot of shit I didn't like to handle, and I wasn't the quiet kind of poster-boy the brass wanted, so I left," Kirk, wily old man by evening, a mysterious entity doing God-knew-what by day, seemed very much the essence of the Captain he'd left back on his ship. It pained him, rather, to hear that Starfleet had lost one of the best officers it had ever acquired, albeit through a rather convoluted method.

"That is most unfortunate to hear," Spock comments, his inflection rather genuine. The doctor seems impressed to hear something very much like emotion in his tone. "However, I am satisfied to find that you are in good health."

"Aww, how sweet," McCoy jeers, just as their food is delivered. The Vulcan wonders how much of the dinner transactions he had missed, lost in his thoughts earlier. "So, what was the mystery dish of yours, anyhow?"

Blue eyes light up, as though the old man has been waiting for his friend to ask this question all evening. "Cross between lasagna and casserole. All organic, helped grow the stuff from the ground up, _and_ I rolled the pasta. Turns out, it's not as hard on my arthritis as I thought."

"Says you," His doctor snorts, completely unconvinced. "I think I'll be the one to determine that, you stubborn old fool."

One white eyebrow cocks in unison with the Vulcan's dark brow, but it is their retired leader who quips back, sarcasm practically dripping in his tone. "Bones, we are _beyond_ the time where I've been able to say it's the pot calling the kettle black."

"Never stopped me from speakin' my mind anyways." McCoy stabs his chicken ferociously, digging into the meat with his utensils, and sloppily putting it into his mouth. "Don't just stare, baby weirdo! God, in some ways, he's worse than ours was."

The past tense doesn't go unnoticed by either the old man or his guest, but the former deigns it appropriate to gesture to the food and start eating it himself, shrugging the comment off. Spock, unsettled, eats tentatively, and startles mentally upon tasting the dish. "It is under seasoned by human standards, but very adequate to the palate of a Vulcan—most _curious_," He notes, and one old man rolls his eyes while the other practically beams.

"At least _someone_ appreciates my cooking," Kirk puffs out his chest a bit and eats his own food with a huge grin, as though he has been waiting his whole life for this compliment.

.x.

Though the half-Vulcan does not stop consistently badgering his host about certain peculiarities, his host does not seem the least tired of his pestering, and is more so amused by it. Furthermore, he seems to have no intent of sending him back right away, nor does he intend to answer his questions. At this realization, Spock figures that this version of his Captain is just as infuriating and difficult to understand as the one he spends every day with. With some hesitation, the commander deems it appropriate to browse the contents of the artifacts lying around the old man's house, the so-called 'light reading' of this James Kirk being nothing to sneeze at. Complex, and controversial scientific and mathematical theories were laid out and broadly discussed in at least twenty-two volumes from three centuries ago, with doodles and scribbles in his leader's recognizable scrawl carved into the pages. Loose papers drifted out of several more publications, entirely original theorems and graphs very neatly detailed and lovingly described in ink and graphite.

He has never doubted this fact, but it is instantly irrefutable that the man is a genius. As a scientist himself, in the hours late in the evening, where he is somewhere between restful meditation, and a whirr of penetrating thoughts, he wanders from the quarters he'd been provided, and found himself drawing up more of the antiquated writing materials, and sketching out his own additions and calculations, his ideas often in congruence with the elder man's.

It is on an evening like that, during perhaps the second week of his stay that he is happened upon by his old host. "That one's a dud," Kirk plops on the floor next to him, insistently ignoring the hundreds of papers he's scribbled on, laid out on the floor, and the ten different books Spock has turned to particularly related pages. "I know—I was working at it for the better part of a month, and I ran into a dead end. There's something about the root of this imaginary number—which should not have turned up in that portion of the equation, anyways—that leads to error, and zero keeps popping up when I change the substitution."

"Perhaps," Spock muses, unwilling to admit defeat, but willing to concede loss for the time being with a small sigh. "My apologies, did my work wake you?"

"Nah," This Kirk had come in with a steaming cup of something—perhaps coffee, and perhaps tea, given the late hour—which meant he'd probably been clamoring about unnoticed in the kitchen for some time, anyways. "I was up, thinking. I guess I just figured I'd better stop holding onto you, let you get back home. I know I promised to get you back before everybody panicked, but I might be a few minutes off, now. I shouldn't have let myself get attached. Just missed you, I suppose."

His science officer, his second-in-command, the rational, unflinching, half-Vulcan felt his loss as though it were his own. Suddenly, he realized why his elder self had been so broken by the loss of his Captain, separated almost certainly by their different physiologies, and therefor lifespans. "I am sure that the loss of your commander in this universe, time, or whereabouts, was something you did your utmost to prevent, and it is conclusively most logical that the fault did not lie in your hands." For once, he hopes that he sounds as apologetic as he feels, beneath his repressions.

The old man barks a laugh, trying valiantly not to spill his drink over the papers strewn about. "Yeah, he would've said that too." His wrinkled hands fondle the mug like it holds the very memories of his first officer. "He was always so worried about me troubling myself, taking everything to be my fault. Well, even if he never outright said just that."

Spock agrees with this statement, feeling very much the same towards his Captain. He was a stubborn sort, the blonde man with a persecution complex, and a heart three times too large, metaphorically speaking. Often, he even agrees (in absolute secrecy) that McCoy does the right thing in forcing him to stay in the sickbay even when it is not strictly necessary. The righteous fury in his stormy blue eyes is worth it, to see him well rested and pleasant on the bridge, two days after he's medically able to return.

"I should've been the one to take the fall," His blue eyes are misty with what his somewhat panicked and decades-younger alternate universe Science Officer hopes will not become tears, in futility. "I wish it, almost every day, that it'd been me and not him. I miss him a whole lot more than I'm willing to admit to anyone else. And then, I saw you—and I _knew_ you weren't the same, but you are so much like _him_. It's so hard…to let go twice."

Their eyes lock as the wrinkled palm that does not hold his cup full of steaming liquid falls on his own soft, youthful hand. Feelings surge between them like both of their dams are broken, and his deep, dark eyes are letting tears fall just the same as those familiar, and yet unfamiliar, blues release their salty drops as well. Intimately, they understand everything, and the young man almost helplessly sobs out his response. "You loved him."

"Yeah," The Kirk who is not _his_ Captain admits, in a whisper.

They both find it very hard to let go, in many ways.

.x.

Meeting Uhura at this branch of Starfleet is almost entirely unexpected, for both of them. The man near her own age seems delightfully surprised to run into her here, even though she does not hesitate to backhand him for neglecting to keep in contact for, _Oh, what was it, I'd say, two, three years? You are in for a __**world**__ of hurt_—she'd ranted on and on, leaving Kirk to roll his eyes, and Spock to fidget restlessly, despite his best efforts to diffuse the situation. The old man assured him that they did this every time they had a sort of reunion, and he'd sort of disappeared for a while after quitting Starfleet, much to the concern of his prior clique. Still, despite the royal talking-to the former Lieutenant—researcher and astrophysicist now, on top of leading linguistics professor in the greater whole of the western world—had given him, he assured the young man that they were still friends, sort of. She was only being stubborn, and he was even more so, and this was just what they did, during the rare occurrences that they did meet.

"It is admittedly reassuring to view you alive and well at this juncture," Spock even admits, startling the professor, and making his old leader smile brightly.

"Hear that, Lieutenant? Isn't that sweet?" Kirk teases, and Uhura rolls her eyes, her lengthy, white tresses pulled into a bun, but she can't suppress the small smile coming to her lips.

"Yeah, well, at least one of you was worried about how I was doing," She does not correct him, that her title has hence changed more than three times since she was Lieutenant Commander and Chief Communications Officer on the starship Enterprise so many years ago. It's something of an empty threat she's tossing to her old boss, who simply seems content to let them do the talking, while they walk. "How long have you been hiding him away, sir?" The polite ending slips out with very little sarcasm, and she has the decency to huff when he smirks and lifts one white eyebrow over the rim of his spectacles. "James."

"Ah, ah, so close, but so far," Spock finds himself helplessly bemused, watching these interactions, and allows himself a brief smile, despite his best efforts to will the urge away.

"Jim," Uhura grunts out without much ado, but her eyes flicker with amusement as well. "So?"

"I dunno. Couple weeks, probably. Gotta get him home, anyways, you and I. Totally glad you're here, by the way. Riley's an incompetent," Not to say he doesn't like the man, but really, it's so reassuring to have some talent around here. Of course, he says none of this, because Uhura's brimming with pride. No matter who they are to each other at this crossroad in life, receiving praise from someone she respected was pleasant. Jim digs in his pockets for a moment and hands her a small digital device with a minute printing of the calculations. "Trust you've got me covered."

"Yes'sir," She salutes without really thinking about it, and he fixes her with a look, so she loosens up and smiles. "Of course, Captain." He looks expectant, and coughs. "Jim," Uhura sighs and manages.

"Much better." The three of them reach something akin to a transporter room, but the machinery is much slimmer, and the landing pads are wider. Shooing Spock to the pad every time he got curious to how their work was going, Uhura and Kirk typed diligently, old fingers tactile and familiar with touch screens and wires and cursing every time they hit a snag. Within an hour or so, they both shot him proud looks, and he knew they were prepared.

"Be safe," Uhura warns him, cocking her hands on her hips, much like his commanding officer had, that first afternoon in this strange but familiar world. "Try not to let your version of _this_ moron wear himself out."

"Hey now," Kirk replies defensively, but he's smiling, regardless. There is a tentative moment of hesitation before he hugs the Vulcan, sagged and soft cheeks flushed rosily. "No, seriously. Don't let me get you killed, just _don't_." He spreads his fingers in the greeting and departing gesture of his own people.

"Live long and prosper," Spock manages just before the two disappear from the range, and the transporter disparages his body throughout space-time. He arrives in one piece, cognitive processes in order and all limbs readily in place, on the ship, which is in a minor chaos. With a minor bit of a huff, he thinks that the much older version of his captain had been all too right, even though, by all rights, the closest clock he's managed to get a glance at, shows that he's only been gone for approximately fourteen point three minutes. Still, the nature of his disappearance had been rather unforeseen, and thus he granted this illogical manner of distraught and rampant emotionalism, if only for the moment.

His captain looks ragged and worried and has hard eyes, and Spock is rather convinced that the first thing of his mouth is going to be _you're an idiot_, or _I told you not to factor in those calculations on the transporter by yourself_, with a fifteen percent margin of error.

Instead, a physical response is the first thing he receives, in the form of a hug titillated with emotions just as strong as the old, unfamiliar Kirk's had been, thoughts and feelings swirling between the two of them, before his dark-blonde haired captain pulls back and smiles, speaking at last, but his words and tones do not match his expression. "_Don't_ do that again."

By all rationality, his guesses had been rather close. He nods as best he can, and tentatively squeezes the other man's arm. "I shall do my best to avoid replicating such an experience."

"Where were you?" Kirk sounds breathless, and he still hasn't let go, so his First Officer can feel all the worry and affection and wild, insane thoughts his Captain has swirling over his own. "You weren't _anywhere_, for this whole time, and I was _sick_." _With worry, violently ill, held back vomit_—the Captain's mind completes.

"I was," The half-Vulcan transmits the experience to him through images, quelling his worry with the sheer intensity of the hospitality and stimulating thoughts he'd been privy to on his brief but long journey. "Visiting a friend." It is himself, and he wills the other man to understand that they, no matter in what capacity they were to find themselves, would wish each other no harm.

Amazed, absolutely floored, Kirk slowly lets him go, and gapes, before smiling that half-cocked smile that blooms into an infectious disease to all onlookers. "Oh my god. Am I a hot eighty-something year old? Actually, don't answer that, because then you'll expect me to answer the same thing about you, and I definitely _don't_ want to go there right now." Spock smiles, keeping his thoughts to himself once again.

"I have…" The officer pauses for a moment. "Missed being here, very much."

Jim seems to understand the semblance of the disturbance of time during the transfer, and only fixes him with a look. "Well, we're pleased to see you well, Mister Spock. If you would report to Doctor McCoy for a check up before returning the bridge, I am sure there are others that would be pleased to view your healthy countenance.

"Thank you, Captain," Fondness creeps into his voice, and they brush hands voluntarily as he stalks off to the medical bay. From somewhere in the close distance, Scott's voice rings out.

"Aye, Cap'n, you'll turn into goo. Best get yerself back to the bridge, yeah?"

The Captain has the minor decency to flush and cough before doing just that. Still, his baby blues linger on the messy calculations he'd memorized from the Science Officer's recently returned adventure.

As furious as he'd been for Spock's abrupt disappearance, _the greatest virtue of man is curiosity_—wisdom in the words of Anatole France, Earth History nineteenth century—was nagging at his brilliant mind.

However, for the moment, he had a ship to run, and a First Officer's health to reassess.


	2. Establishmentarianism

**A/N**: This is actually the chapter I had a dream about, and it is more forthrightly romantic than the previous chapter. That being the case, **WARNING!** Explicit m/m relations here. Please enjoy!

_Momentarily_ - Thank you to _all_ of my readers, with a very special thanks for all of you that favorited and followed this little thing, and a super special shout out to _Jen_ & _MirrorFlower and DarkWind_, who reviewed. I love you all very much from the bottom of my heart, I mean it. I hope that the second chapter lives up to your expectations.

* * *

_**Wanderlust**_

* * *

II: Establishmentarianism

"_History creates comprehensibility primarily by arranging facts meaningfully and only in a very limited sense by establishing strict casual connections."_

-Johan Huizinga, 1872-1945.

* * *

McCoy has learned to recognize this look on his friend for years now, and is thus exasperated to deal with this for the umpteenth time, mostly because he doesn't know if the other, younger man is swooning over a person, or a science experiment. Recently, his studies show, the answer is likely to be both. "So, you gonna tell me why you've been makin' goo-goo eyes at that monitor all month, or 'm I gonna have to strap you to _your_ biobed in medical and threaten you with a hypo 'til you spill?" Of course the captain of this vessel has his own bed; as many times as he's been in the medical bay, rather for counseling, physical trauma, allergy, or the frequent mission-gone-wrong, it'd be stranger if he didn't.

The captain looks frightfully appalled at the notion, and visibly retracts in his place, lounging in the chair the wrong way. His friend decides that warning him about the adverse effect this will have on his back is not the most poignant thing he can do in the moment, so instead he grimaces and waits. "Just thinking about that day he disappeared."

"Of _course_ you are," He's hardly thought of anything else, since it happened. To the untrained eye, the captain and first officer are no more connected than usual, and there is no overt change between them, but to someone highly familiar with _both_ of their patterns, it's pretty _damn_ obvious Spock and Kirk are both acting like they're going to get separated through space and time at the drop of a highly ancient and obsolete needle. Blondie claps the Vulcan's shoulder and brushes fingertips with him a lot more often, and looks as though his world will fall apart if he does not see the pointy-eared bastard every twelve hours. It's probably affecting his sleep schedule. Word from Uhura says that the green-blooded freak isn't fairing any better, and is—_lord have mercy_, he thinks—_smiling_ more often. It's very telling that he doesn't even have to ask who 'he' is, anyways. "So, you gonna go pour your heart out so I can throw up into a warm glass of bourbon now, or later?"

Jim buries his head and flushes absolutely scarlet, and McCoy groans and snorts with laughter at the same time, resulting in a rather undignified response to his friend's visible discomfort. "Oh, shut up, Bones. I mean, it's not like it was ever a secret, anyways. I'm sort of happy where we are, mostly." The hesitant utterance of the word _mostly_ holds a world of meaning, and McCoy, for all his conflicted distaste and begrudging respect for the half-Vulcan, wishes that they'd get together, if for nothing else than to remove the crease from the younger man's brows. He—hell, _both of them_—deserve to be happy. "That's beside the point. The formula, the one he was working on that day," McCoy notices that when his friend is feeling particularly avoidant, he takes very great care not to say the object of his strange affections' name. "It was amazing, completely remonstrating to the field of linear chronologies—all those theories, continuums, loopholes, the consistent question raised with regards to alternate realities and timelines—"

"Jesus, slow down," The doctor bristles sardonically. "Not all of us have got all those brains up there, dammit, so break it down in English standard for me."

"I'm _saying_, he probably travelled through time _and _space—and that's a game-changer, even in our era," Bones opens his mouth to tell him that they did that every day, but it seemed that the captain had more to add. "More than just that, he went above and beyond surpassing the speed of light; he completely circumnavigated the need for traveling back and forth on a strictly monochronological cycle. In layman's terms," Jim hurries to amend, noticing the haze clouding his CMO's eyes. "He went to another universe, in another time. Not only was it parallel, like Ambassador Spock's, but it was completely separated, and yet very much the same. Not altogether unheard of, but _this time_, there were no black holes involved."

"Conclusion?" McCoy gets the gist of it, but he doesn't really get what it means.

"I dunno, Bones, I guess I'm just…curious." Right. The good doctor is more than sure that his friend just wants to know what Spock had been privy to on his adventures through time, in whatever world he'd ended up. Or, better yet, wants a chance to taste what could have been, or still could be, for himself, as Spock had.

"So, you wanna go through an indeterminate rip through the ages, for a science experiment, to see if you and Spock get laid and married and adopt a hundred starvin' kids from Tarsus in another world." Jim flushes scarlet again, so he figures he's hit the nail on the head. "You're being a right moron about this whole fuckin' mess."

"Please," He's begging, which means it's serious, and how can he say no to that face.

"If we fuck this up, I'm gonna go down in history as the stupidest, most mutinous CMO in Starfleet's history, and you're gonna be the mysteriously vanished, highly decorated, youngest captain in the Academy's annals."

They share a brief chuckle over that, and blue eyes flash recklessly in his direction. "Yeah, well, they've always wanted a poster boy, so that'd be the only way they'd get one. I'm not planning on giving them that satisfaction, though. Make sure no one comes looking for me, for say, three hours or so, just in case."

"You owe me one, you huge baby," McCoy drawls as the golden-shirted captain waves and disappears around a corner.

.x.

After the first hour of attempting to duplicate the situation in which Spock's disappearance had occurred, he had miraculously caused the functional malfunction that had made his First Officer vanish from all their readings and monitors, so he considered this operation a success. Stumbling onto the busy streets of San Francisco, Jim was only momentarily concerned that he'd only travelled through space, before he caught the eye of someone familiar, and yet not.

"Jim?" It's his mother, Winona Kirk, but she's next to a man he only recognizes from photographs, and holds a small child in his arms that he knows is not himself as a boy. "Why are you wearing that? Did you enlist in Starfleet after all?"

It's a wonder he does not pass out then and there. "Wait, look. I'm probably not the Jim you know. So, could we all, err, get out of the street and talk somewhere? I need to sit and, well, sort of, regain my composure." He feels like he's five years old and he's attempting to steal out of the house while she's asleep and gotten caught, badly reprimanded, before she hurries off-planet again the day after, and he scuffles with his stepfather.

"Alright," She seems shaken, much as he is, the child only has big, curious eyes, and the man that can be no one else but his blood father seems rather unsurprised about all of this. They hurry to a quiet, out-of-sight little restaurant, and order a table for four. For a moment, they take time to reacquaint themselves, and he gets to the tricky part.

"In my world, you're, um," His father's eyes are just as blue and piercing as his mother's, and they come to a weird sort of understanding, while he fumbles for the words.

"Dead, huh?" They sound more alike than he'd figured. Recordings never truly captured the essence of a person's voice, after all, and that was the only way in which he'd ever heard George Kirk speak to him. "I was a prominent member in rank on the _Kelvin_. If something were to go wrong, most likely I would assume leadership, ensure the safety of all members aboard, and go down with the ship."

He looks a little taken aback to have been read so deeply, and sheepishly scratches his arm, hooding his eyes like he had as a child, in nervous habit. "Yeah. Yeah, you did just that. You died a hero." The words choke him with an unexpected bitterness. "Oh, shhh_hhhoot_," He hurries to correct his language, remembering the presence of the child. "Sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

"Yes you did," George remarks, quirking an eyebrow, his smile something of an enigma to his estranged child in a different universe. "My dad died a war hero too, before I was old enough to remember what he looked like. Trust me, I know how you feel."

James groans and buries his head in something akin to shame. "Yeah, well, you sure didn't hesitate to follow in your old man's footsteps. I didn't either, for that matter."

Winona is the one to break the bewildered tension this time. "You're not _dead_ in your world, are you? You left behind a child?"

"What?" Jim startles, all the more curious about the identity of the little boy clinging to his mother now. "_Hell_ no! I just meant, I enlisted in Starfleet. Kinda got challenged to join, and the whole becoming Captain thing was some sort of huge, glorious accident."

George seems both impressed and concerned. His sort-of son realizes that in this world, somewhere, there must be a James T. Kirk he bears a strong resemblance to, and he's assessing him much like he would have his own kin. "How long?"

"Err, it'll be about nine years soon, I think," Mentally, he tallies—the first two were such a mess, the second two were just as tumultuous, and their five year mission would be completed in a matter of months.

"How old are _you_?" The boy finally speaks, and Jim just about jumps out of his seat. He's no good at dealing with kids, or so he assumes. It's safer that way; that is, to avoid the wrath of their territorial, overprotective parents.

"Thirty-five," He manages to answer with his charming smirk, and the kid beams back at him. "How about you, buddy?"

"Six!" The kid seems excited to be included. "You know, my daddy's your age, too! You could be twins. Daddy never said he had a twin, though."

Thoughts swirl among all the adults. His parents are bewildered that he'd been captain from such a frightfully young age, and Jim is coming to the fast realization he'd first feared. After all, his parents were getting on in age, going strictly by appearance, and the fact that they were saddled with a kid, given that they'd recognized him so quickly, was strange, and it was therefore logical to conclude that the boy was _his_ son.

_Shit_. Jim swallowed back oncoming bile, and hailed their waitress, eager for a fresh glass of water.

.x.

They'd ordered food, but continued exchanging an array of questions. Still, Jim, after a couple hours with his family—_well, my men and women on the Enterprise are my family, my __**real**__ family, but blood is blood_—had grown concerned.

"So, I mean, not to pry into my own business," Jim quips lightly, trying to keep his rushing panic out of his tone. "But where's Charlie's mom? Why's he with you guys?"

"I don't have a mom," Charlie answers, hazel eyes crystal clear. Winona and George simply wait next to him, to do damage control.

"Ah shit, Mom, I'm sorry—" He stumbles to apologize. He'd probably gotten some poor broad knocked up, and now he was passing his responsibility off to his parents. Disgusted with himself, he feels self-loathing claw at his chest.

"No, sweetie, he's only with us for the weekend," Winona assures her boy, and Jim looks up, hurriedly surprise. "But you aren't single, Jim."

His mind whirrs and catches. "Whaa," His tongue forces the syllable out, somehow; he hasn't the faintest idea how words are forming.

"I hope you have someone as nice as Spock in _your_ life," George comments, sounding proud and vaguely reprimanding. Jim must've been a troubled teen in this universe, too. But, more than anything else he's heard, this shakes him to his core the most.

"I really came to a world…where I married Spock…and adopted a kid," Jim breathed, sounding half-choked and happy and ridiculous all at the same time.

"Of course!" Charlie chimes, beaming and showing off his gapped teeth.

.x.

Spock's doing that _thing_ with his ear, not so much kissing it or licking it but humming against it, running his lust for him against his very skin, and he shivers in needy response. His hips rock up to meet him, and the blonde greedily forces those long, pale fingers to his groin, using his tongue and teeth and entire _mouth_ to press into his partner's skin. Both of their groans are guttural, passing all this emotion and lack of thought and everything else sort of dissipates as Jim reaches for his member, hand freshly lubricated, and Spock croons, stopping the ear-thing and falling to the sensuous skin of his neck.

"Have I told you how sexy you are today," Jim breathes the question uneasily, words stilted by his kisses and licks, and the Vulcan's heart on the side of his abdomen is pulsing even faster than its' usual faster-than-human average. His partner responds in kind by slipping those long fingers down his rear crevice, a familiar movement, so he figures he's taking the praise in stride.

"I am never adverse to hearing such a compliment," Spock breathes back, rubbing that cool lotion-gel between his buttocks and eliciting the most illegal noise from the other male's mouth. Just as he is prepared to penetrate him and look for a condom, the communicator buzzes, and they both stop rigidly in their tracks. It's set for only two people to be able to reach them, at present. Stopping his maneuverings immediately, the Vulcan looks distantly disappointed. "It is your mother or father. They would not be likely to call during our time alone if something were not immediately of concern, regarding Charles."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know." Jim bemoans prepensely, willing the problem of his lower half away and preparing for the worst as he answers the ring. "'llo?"

"_Sorry to ring while you're busy,_" His mother really does sound sorry. He knows she must sympathize, as he was an absolute terror for his grandparents as a child, and had hardly left his parents time to nap together for an hour while on a weekend away, let alone two days to have wild sex without a buzz. "_Got something a bit urgent to deal with. Before you ask, no, Charlie hasn't broken anything._"

He sighs and is flaccid, the worry disengaging the flood of pressure to his groin, and concern took precedence over his pleasure. "Do you need to come by? We won't be presentable for another twenty minutes or so."

"_That's fine. Take your time, Jim._" She always says that when she's worried, so he feels like it's a bigger deal than she's letting on.

"You shower first, then me?" Jim offers, fully aware that he will require more time in the bathroom than his lover. Spock nods stiffly, just as worried as he is, so he plants a kiss on his furrowed brow. "Come on, they're coming by in twenty or so. It's gonna be okay." The forehead kiss is followed by a slow, comforting number on his lips that involves no tongue and eases some of the fright out of both of their eyes. "Stiff upper lip, Spock."

"I have never understood that particular colloquialism, Jim," He responds softly, and then leaves the dark-blonde haired man to flop on their bed.

"Me neither," Jim sighs, feeling suddenly very cold.

.x.

Captain Jim Kirk is now very aware as to why his second-in-command finds it so uncomfortable to be in the same room as the ambassador with whom he shares a commonality and parallelism. After a moment of tension, he finally breaks down. "_Shit_, this is weird." His other self guffaws at his own awkward tension. "Err, sorry about my, uh, language. Do you two ever, I guess, curse in front of the kid?"

"Like a sailor," The James of this world amends, sounding both pleased with himself and like a reprimanded child. "Of course, I am consistently told to cease and desist by my family." Charlie and James seem frightfully attuned at that moment, grinning brightly at each other from opposite couches in the living room.

"Charles must learn the importance of an extensive vocabulary, and it is my earnest and expressed desire that such _colorful_ language is decidedly _infrequent_ in his speech patterns," Spock reminds him, but James, curled comfortably against him, shrugs.

The captain feels like he's seen something incredibly private, even though their child is present, and his parents—_not his, not really, but how incredibly similar Winona is to the woman back home he hasn't spoken to in months_—are also there.

"So, let me guess," James starts, analyzing another version of himself as though this is an everyday occurrence. "You were freaking out over something, got wrapped up in a weird sort of science experiment, and decided trapezing through space-time was a dandy fucking idea." All the eyes except Charlie's baby blues and the captain's give him a scolding glare. The three share a moment of silent agreement and laughter between them, but remain focused on the topic at hand.

"Something a lot like that," His counterpart agrees readily. "I didn't really want to intrude, but I guess my, err, first officer," His gaze shifts to Spock like gravity pulls the moon around earth, and he forces his eyes to come back to his own hands instead. "Had a similar experience. You could say I was a little jealous."

"A little?" James scoffs, smirking knowingly.

Jim smiles back, eyes playful. "Okay, maybe a lot."

"And now, we all have to work together to find some sort of solution that's probably supposed to be available fifty years in the future, to get you back," Married Jim, with his child restlessly tossing on the couch, and his very much male spouse sitting ramrod straight next to him, is very attuned to him, it seems.

"Yeah," The captain sounds almost disappointed and more than a little rueful. "That's about the gist of it."

"How long did your Spock stay missing?" It's so weird to see his own eyes picking him apart like this, and distantly he realizes why Pike had told him many times to stop staring at people so stringently, like he was trying to cut their brains to little pieces.

"I didn't say anything about a Spock," Jim gets surprisingly defensive, and is shocked to see his fists curling at the notion. No matter how very similar they are, he's never been good at letting _anyone_ know about all of the things running around in the turmoil of his mind.

"You didn't have to," James _had_ noticed that slip with his eyes when he'd mentioned the adventures of his first officer, and gives him a hard look again. "So, how long?"

"When I asked him about it later, he said he was away for about two and a half weeks, but in our time? Probably about fifteen minutes."

"Let me guess, some version of us had a heavy hand in getting him back," James is running this whole show, and Spock, as well as his parents, are no doubt unsurprised by his mental capacity, but are more so amazed with his adaptability to the situation. Of course, the captain himself is like this, so he adapts at just the same rate.

"Yup," Jim replies easily. "If it helps, I know most of the formula offhand—I'll jot it out for you before I forget. But we'll need all the help we can get, ideally from Starfleet, to get me back."

"Don't worry," James offers, smiling mysteriously in the way that Jim knows means nothing but charming misbehavior. He wonders if this is why most of his shipmates are consistently so wary of him after he turns on the charm. "I know someone there who owes me a few favors."

.x.

"Two Jim Kirks in one universe. Tell me this _isn't_ what hell looks like, and I'll eat my damn shoes." Captain Jim Kirk doesn't think he could be any happier to meet his favorite grumpy medical officer.

"Bones!" They both greet, taking turns to swiftly clap him on the back and flash their pearly whites at him before he tosses up an arm and mumbles more curses under his breath.

"Did you leave your pets at home?" Doctor Leonard McCoy eyes the empty space behind the two of them suspiciously.

James—the one belonging this universe—rolls his eyes. "Spock and Charlie are with my parents at the house, Bones. Now, are you gonna help other me get back home like a proper gentleman, or am I gonna have to pull the dirty tricks?"

"My Bones almost always needs to be reminded of the dirty tricks before anything works," The Captain remarks, and makes a quick ally of the other Kirk.

"I know, right? Why resist a perfectly nice offer, before it becomes ugly? But no, this grumpy li'l teddy bear's just gotta put up a fuss." They laugh for a long while, and McCoy thinks he could not be more mortified and exhausted if he tried.

"If this shit ends up with more of you on this planet, I'll find a way to end _all_ of you," The doctor bites with no real intent behind his words, and both of the men named Kirk roll their eyes in quick and expectant response.

While they work, they trade words. Mostly, the captain is curious, and for the days they toil away at this, the two talkative and amazingly similar men with very different lives cannot stop swapping stories.

A lot of their chatter revolves around Spock, unsurprisingly enough. James, who has already gotten his shit together, says that it was a sort of benevolent shift from his criminality to his salvaged life. His half-Vulcan had declined entrance to the Vulcan academy for similar reasons to the Spock on the Enterprise, found himself on a trip with his parents for Federation business months later, and discovered his calling in teaching Xenobiology and Linguistics. He expressed distaste for Starfleet, if only because of their intimate relationship with the Academy of his own home (this was quite different in Jim's world, he noted to James). James told him that, when he'd been at his very worst, he'd been on the verge of drinking himself to death, and happened upon an old friend from high school. First he'd picked himself up, dropped the booze, and then looked for a job, and as soon as he went to a party with the old friend, he'd found the distinctly uncomfortable-looking Vulcan sulking in the corner (Spock denied, of course, that he'd been doing anything of the sort), and chatted with him. They'd been fast enemies, he laughed—Jim told him of his adventures with Spock, and James laughed even harder, saying that he'd gotten off easy by comparison, to just have bickered with him. After getting past the enemy phase, they'd come to respect each other enough to stop yelling in public restaurants, and eased into the transition of good friends naturally. As it turned out, they'd been too busy trying to best the other to see that they really balanced each other out quite well.

Moving in had been the solution for their financial woes and search for a better place to debate and discuss into the midnight hours. Shortly after the move had come the confession, and after that the absolutely _mind-blowing_ sex, and years later, the decision to firstly get married, and secondly adopt. James remarked that they were both the best things to have happened to him in the last nine years, and then asked his counterpart what he'd been doing in the past decade.

So, he told him. James remained very bleak, but also irrevocably intrigued, throughout the entirety of the tale. It was so much more a biography full of life-or-death realities, so much more foreign to him that Jim absolutely thought James would cry. To see himself with more responsibility than just as a husband or a parent absolutely terrified him.

"Yeah, it scares me pretty shitless, too." The captain admits, stroking the bolts of the machine they're creating out of the parts of other machines and transporters. "But honestly, I think being married and having a kid scares me a whole lot more."

"You realize that's absolutely insane, right?" James says, bewildered.

Blue eyes turn down, and greasy hands let the wrench fall into his tight grip on the floor. "Yeah."

.x.

Three weeks and four days pass before they manage to test the transporter—or whatever it is now—and successfully bring the inanimate object out of their reality and back, so both of the James Kirks are positively gleeful. Jim apologizes for taking so much of his alternative's time, but Spock and Charlie seem altogether pleased that their family member had found someone with which to truly relate outside of his close friend, the doctor McCoy, and themselves. In the time which Jim hadn't been absolutely glued to the machine, he'd spent some time with his parents as well, learning to like his father now that he'd gotten a chance to really meet and converse with him. His mother, with George, is a very different woman. It's such a shame things are the way they are in the captain's actuality.

Charlie had come to absolutely adore him, pattering around them while they chatted in Starfleet's workshop. He assured the foreign Jim that his blonde father's work was more lucrative, but paid them well, and said nothing more on the subject. It probably helped that he was very much like the men who raised him, keeping promises as though they were his lifeblood.

In short, they would all miss this Jim, and he would miss them, too. "It was kind of like having a freakishly similar twin," James noted, smiling fondly.

"Yeah," Jim agreed. He took time to hug all of them, save for Spock, feeling more than awkward hugging a touch-telepath bearing such a strong resemblance to the one he knew, scared that his misplaced and misguided affection would bleed through his pores, and he had no desire to wreck their pleasant home.

"Jim," His counterpart, at home here, takes him aside before they truly send him off. "If he's anything like my Spock, he likes you. Invite him to play chess, call him for dinner—it's the little stuff that really wears at his shields."

The captain flushes to his roots, and somehow, he can tell Spock had heard his lover's every word, given by the way that he looked distinctly uncomfortable too, but simply let his James slip their hands together, and saluted Jim with the _ta'al_ gesture while his particles dissimilated and assimilated again.

.x.

McCoy, who's been looking out for him, glancing over old digitized reports, bent over the display pad rigidly in the transporter room, startles and jerks his head up at the noise. "Jesus, give a man a heart attack, why don't you. Well, new record. Weren't even gone long enough for me to finish my coffee. Satisfied?"

"Yeah," Jim replies, sounding distant and frantic. "Hey Bones, is Spock on duty?"

The doctor's slight frown twists into a grimace. "Hell should I know, Jim? Dunno how long you were out there on cuckoo planet, but usually it'd be _your_ business and not _mine_ to know when your commander's due for duty." Blue eyes fix him with a look, and he throws up his hands. "Look, you want my best guess? _No_, you damn fool. So go find 'im and get…_whatever_ this is off your chest, before you both have to report to the bridge."

"You're the best," His captain says, sounding very serious, and he feels strangely out of place with the sincerity of the praise.

"I know," McCoy responds, and pretends not to know what Jim's gone to do.


	3. Fuctionality

**A/N**: It's very strange to be writing new thoughts on something I wrote three weeks ago! I've proofed this chapter, and re-read it several times, but I'm sure there's always room for more edits and improvements. Apologies, just in case. **WARNING**, semi-explicit m/m relations in this chapter.

Once again, thank you to all of you that have followed and favorited this story. I hope that this third chapter meets your expectations, and was worth the wait!

* * *

_**Wanderlust**_

* * *

III: Functionality

"_Futurism: This was a movement of intellectuals who wanted to replace tradition with the modern world of machinery, speed, violence, and public relations. It proves we should be careful what intellectuals wish for, because we might get it."_

-Brad Holland, American Illustrator, b. 1943.

* * *

It probably wasn't much of a secret in the first place, and certainly wasn't one since Uhura had openly belted a laugh out on the bridge and assured her captain that she hadn't been making moves on _his_ man for more than four years. He seemed surprised, but the rest of the bridge worked very hard not to join her in laughing.

Still, it was rare that they'd have very grating tiffs, but not so rare that the expression on his face did not tell his closest staff members that this stint was a particularly bad strain. They, remarkably, didn't let it bleed into their work—this was probably an agreement they'd settled on, upon encouraging this strange romantic entanglement—and relied on each other just as much as always, on the bridge. Once they were separated, and no longer required to associate on these days, it was pretty evident that the play's curtains had closed. As of the current star-date, their worst stint had lasted five days, but no one was ignorant, and they were awaiting the blowout.

Since this was day six, Uhura was not the first to figure that the big one had come. After shift, she'd pulled Kirk aside and sighed, speaking to him with her sibling-like tone and friendly stance. "So," She urged him to grab something to eat in the cafeteria before joining her in a private room. "What's happened?" They often conferred on these evenings; both of them knowing full well how infuriating the half-Vulcan commander could be in one of his moods, or whatever he decided to call them that didn't parlay his blatant leak of emotions.

"His dad's sick and he won't talk to me about it. I may or may not have shouted at him to speak to his other self to get some counseling since he didn't trust me, and he may or may not have done that whisper-yelling thing to get me out of the room afterwards," Kirk pushes the slosh on his plate around lazily, no obvious intent to eat the mess.

Uhura, on the other hand, ate with no formalities, taking no account to her captain's apparent lack of hunger. It was far less frequent that he ate in her presence, anyhow, and it was no use waiting for him. "Yikes. You know he's probably beating himself up over it, and it's not you."

Running a hand through blonde-brown tresses, groaning, and then putting his head to the table, her captain murmured back a response. "Yeah, I wish I could believe that. It's harder to believe when he won't let me come back and talk to him, and he won't apologize, either."

"Jim," She sternly grabs the hand he has splayed on the table, and he sits up. "It's _not_ you. I promise." For added measure, she smiles grimly. "I'm sorry he's being like this. I'm gonna try to talk to him."

"Sorry 'bout…all this," He gestures, meaning the mess that is the relationship between himself and his first officer. At this moment, he cannot think of another person on this ship he has been more grateful to, save perhaps Bones, when they have these slip-ups. Of course, the friendly smile and continued confidence Chekov has in him boosts his ego when he is deflated, Sulu's stubborn pride and strong reassurance make him straighten his back, Scotty's formulas and challenges to his mind keep him busy, and his friend, the good doctor, reprimands him like a brother, friend, and parent, just enough to remind him what he's on this ship to do. He needs all of them—he needs all six or seven or eight hundred people on this ship, who _knows_—and they need him to be at his best, even when, sometimes, he just _isn't_. So, for times like this, their expectancies _make_ him better, until he leaves the bridge.

"Commitment's tough, isn't it?" She quips, and he groans, almost physically regretful for all the one-night stands he had in the past.

.x.

Uhura's face on his private comm in the morning tells him that she does _not_ have good news. "So, how bad did shit hit the fan," He manages to grind out as he slides out of bed and tosses on a sweatshirt.

"It didn't—well, at least, not about what you're thinking it's about. Captain, Spock's nowhere to be found on the ship." Dread fills his stomach, and he can now see the panic in her eyes, adrenaline rushing the sleep from his veins. "I tried to wait as long as I could to tell you, until we ran every possibility, but the last I heard, some Ensign from the Medical Department tried to contact him at oh-one hundred hours, and when she glimpsed him through the communicator, he somehow seemed less tangible. At the time, she had attributed it as a fault of the technology—it's a rather common glitch, unfortunately. Scotty's afraid that those explorations throughout time which the both of you experienced within the last half year had a lasting effect on your physicalities."

"Shit," The captain grinds out, throwing the sweatshirt back off in favor of donning the uniform black shirt, regulation slacks, and the gold shirt. "All officers report to bridge, _stat_. Kirk out."

"Yes'sir," Uhura replies and her image fizzles out.

It's a testament to their joint determination that neither of them empties the contents of their stomachs on the floor.

.x.

The time is currently oh-five-hundred hours, and no one feels this painful reality more than Captain James Kirk. Sliding a grimy hand down his disgusting-feeling face, everything sinks in more harshly, as he looks at the faces of his fellow officers. After a moment, he sighs, and begins to speak, knowing that it's his duty to raise their spirits. "Look, let's be honest. It's early, and, quite frankly, we all probably feel like _shit_. Our fellow officer, Commander Spock, is missing. Still, _because_ that's the case, we must resolve to hold our heads high, keep 'em on straight, and get to the bottom of this mess, and I have no doubt that everyone on this ship is fit for the job." Everyone settled and some crew members chuckled with pride. "Now, we've got a ship to run, and a snotty First Officer to save." They woop and laugh and holler, and he forces a wry smile at their bitter amusement. "Thank you, everyone."

For the next few hours, _rush_ is the only thing everyone can attribute to the brains of this operation, but Kirk remains relatively tranquil, after his initial outburst with the Communications Officer, Lieutenant Commander Uhura. Bones, unsurprisingly, is the one to pull him away from overseeing some calculations and signing off on a yeoman's report after his sixtieth straight hour awake, first offering to do things the easy way, and upon meeting resistance, settled for the hard way—or rather _his_ easy way—by stabbing a hypo full of a nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic that will _not_ kill Jim in his sleep via allergic reaction into his neck. The lack of presence of even the falsely optimistic captain lowers crew morale, but they trudge along diligently, hoping that the fruit of their efforts will be worthwhile to show Captain Kirk when he breaks free from the sickbay in six to ten hours, give or take how well the medicine kept the man at a distance.

Nearing the moment of truth, the seventh hour of their leader's fitful rest, it is beautiful, wonderful Chekov that bounds in, hair frayed and sleepy bags under his eyes, with a gleeful smile and a piece of paper that will, he hopes, fix everything.

"I believe I have found Mizter Spock!" Coordinates—Scotty could absolutely _kiss_ the youngest member of the Enterprise. "We must hurry, as his position eez not, ah, _guaranteed_! Anchor, we must anchor, Mizter Spock, to ze ship!"

"I dun' care if we haveta _tape_ the hobgoblin to the damn _floor_, let's just hurry up and catch 'im before the moron wakes up!" McCoy's drawl is very heavy under duress, but no one dares mock him for it.

It's a crazy rush job, Uhura, Chekov, and McCoy making the landing party, and someone suggests bringing a phaser as well as a weighted ring—usually granted to secret officials of the Federation government and the higher-ups—so as to tether him to the ship, once they cross paths.

The Vulcan seems rather expectant of their arrival, and is halfway towards transparent when the doctor shoves that (probably illegally procured) ring on his left hand and clips the phaser onto his belt so quickly that his typical bickering partner doesn't have time to do much else other than watch himself come back to full opacity and volume, his dark eyes grateful. When they return to the ship, he tentatively hovers at Jim's side, unable to speak both because he does not want to wake him, and because Doctor McCoy had threatened to rip his balls off if he frightened him more than he had by going missing for the past three days. Even before this whole mess, they'd been 'fighting'—well, most of the reason for dissent was, admittedly, his own folly—and he was unsure of what to say, even when familiar blue eyes fluttered open behind dark eyelashes.

"Tell me I'm not dreaming," Kirk grumbles, punching the arm of his first officer with absolutely no force whatsoever.

"You most certainly are not in a state of illustrative unconsciousness, Captain," Spock assures, sitting rigidly in the chair next to the magnetized biobed. "I returned to the ship twenty minutes, seventeen-point-six-three-three seconds ago, and remain tethered to the ship largely thanks to the adequate analyzation of Mister Chekov and Mister Scott. They informed me that the ring, however, was something they took from your quarters without permission."

The captain barks a laugh. "Who would've known that old thing I pilfered from Pike would come in handy some day. Well, hell knows I'm glad to see you again. Feeling chatty again, are we?"

"I must admit, whilst inconveniently traveling throughout unmeasured space and time, I realized that it was most illogical to continue avoiding the issue previously in contention between us." Spock sounds like he's reading the nutrition facts from a very dry box of cereal, so Kirk knows he's feeling very sorry. "I do apologize."

"S'alright. I get it. Your dad wasn't feelin' too hot. If I'd gotten a call that my mom was deathly sick, I wouldn't've been too pepped about it either. S'no reason to run away from me, though." Jim reaches a hand out, and hums happily when Spock reaches back. "When I'm outta here, when we really get a chance to talk about _this_," He floods the emotions lust, happiness, sadness, confusion, and his overall _love_ for him into the touch-telepath's gentle clasp, and upon afterwards finding Spock making a small noise in response, he continues, smiling. "I'm gonna have you fuck me into next Tuesday, and then I'll return the favor."

Following this muttered declaration, there is a long pause, so the captain wholly expects his first officer to respond, _Captain, there is no logical way for me to have sex with you, or you I, until the day of the week has inexplicably changed, _but instead gets something very much like the Vulcan equivalent of a joke back in response. "If you…_insist_, Captain."

_His_ lust is all encompassing. Jim licks his lips in anticipation.

.x.

They are quite in the middle of having intercourse when Jim positively disappears, much like Spock had weeks prior, even though Scotty and Chekov had insisted that they'd done just as much, if not more, to keep the man tethered to the ship as they had the Vulcan.

Although Spock is outwardly much calmer and more in control than Kirk had been during his loss, he is a far cry from their inspirational leader, and his stoicism more often than not makes the other officers distraught.

"This is absolute _hell_," McCoy announces truthfully, on the dawn of the second day of his friend's unexpected disappearance. "Jim's not here, our actin' Captain is prob'ly more unfit for duty than any a the rest of these ninnies, and I can't get a decent swig o' booze worth the shirt on my back."

Uhura is the one to warn the Vulcan-hybrid of his behaviors on the third day. "Look, Spock," She says in a kind tone. "Stop projecting. It's kind of, honestly, making us feel like shit that we can't find him either. So go work on something helpful, get off the bridge for a while, and stop _sulking_, for Christ's sake."

"I am not—" He starts, and is interrupted, "You are," by the communications officer.

When he turns, looking dejected, she sighs and grabs his wrist, knowing well that all his worry and horror and panic will flood into her, because he's hardly keeping a lid on it right now. "We all want to find Kirk _just as much as you do_. It'll help us a lot more if you put your brain to work on some calculations with Scotty and Chekov instead of doing damage control. Trust me on this."

His eyes are steady as her grip slackens, and he eventually nods, deciding to trust her. "Thank you, Nyota."

"You're welcome," She nods and scurries back to the bridge.

.x.

Jim Kirk, for what it's worth, is having what is close to the most _miserable_ experience of his life.

The people on this planet are anything but hostile, but they're _completely_ insistent upon treating him like some sort of deity, and respectfully force-feeding him the common delicacies of their world. Of course, he's promptly allergic to almost all of what they give him, and does the smart thing by first forcing himself to vomit the offending foods up, and then stabbing himself with one of the five epinephrine autoinjector needles Bones consistently made him carry, for instances such as these.

Somehow, the task of refusing them comes heavily, but he manages it by midday, and then promptly relocates somewhere very different, and _very much _hostile, on day two. Fighting for his life is nothing new, of course, but he cannot help but wonder if the universe is a special kind of pleased when he gets himself subjected to these kinds of messes.

.x.

Spock figures out the error, amusingly enough, by thinking of exactly what kind of anomaly James T. Kirk is, on the pandering of his sexual finesse.

"We must find something that he is _not_ allergic to, will not have sex with, and cannot attack him," Everyone in the conference room is generally confused, but it's day six, and they're getting sort of hopelessly desperate for something to fix things and get their captain back. "That we may attach to his leg."

"_Please_ tell me this doesn't have to do with your personal kinks," McCoy gristles, the look in his eyes more than stern.

"I speak merely of something to tether him to the ship, as the metal I resonate with does not work. Perhaps, for the captain, sentimentality and emotion have more importance than singular rhythms with the ship's makeup."

"I still don't see how attachin' some sort of fancy sex toy to his ankle is gonna pull him back here," McCoy says, but then his jaw falls open. "_Unless_ that emotion is what brings his mind back to us, and then his body follows!"

"Big issue—where _is_ the captain, however?" Uhura wonders, ruining the moment of good humor in the room, but her ex still seems in charge of his thoughts.

"I've been following his quickly scattering biorhythms, and I calculate that we will find him somewhere most familiar, within a matter of hours."

.x.

New Vulcan is pretty much the best thing to happen to him in what feels like weeks. He breathes heavy sighs of relief upon roughly speaking Vulcan to a couple of robed women, asking for either Councilor Sarek or Ambassador Spock, and promptly being delivered to the familiarly-faced male relatives.

"I don't think I've ever been happier to see you guys," Jim grinds out, blue eyes full of happiness, but also fear. "Look, I dunno how long I'll be here, but I _need_ you to find a way to contact Spock—" His eyes dart to the old man, and he amends himself. "The Spock of my time, on the Enterprise, I mean, and let him know I'm _here_. Like, _pronto._"

They both appear amused, but also concerned, and heed his words, without much pattering, or even quips that 'pronto' was not a sufficient measurement of time. Spock arrived quickly, and Jim could only be amazingly thankful that they had managed to coincide.

"I do apologize for my actions soon to come, Captain," Just as Jim's about to ask what he's talking about, a weird cuff snaps around his ankle and immediately makes him woozy, and shortly very, very warm. "The tint in your cheeks and the rise of your bodily temperature by an estimated sixteen-point-seven percent tells me that the aphrodisiac is getting into your blood stream very quickly, and therefor the first phase of my plan is complete."

"Plan," He wheezes helplessly, blood rushing from his head to his groin in record time, feeling every one of his officer's touches like a brand hot on the iron.

"You must learn to associate your very strong feelings with the ship, or you will be unable to return to it in permanence," Spock says, but all Kirk can think is _Jesus fuck, kiss me, fuck me, I can't stand it_, and he knows they can both hear the thought because the half-Vulcan ruts against him as if to placate him for a moment. "I would not be adverse to this lust and romance being at the core of your highly rampant and possibly volatile emotions, if it will allow you to come back."

"Fuck—_fuck_, too hot for this shit—touch me," He can hardly believe he's managed more than the downright nonsensical moans and animalistic movements he knows he's subjecting his First Officer to. "I'll promise you the whole fucking _world_ if we could go back to the ship and _fuck right now_, Spock, I swear it, I _swear_—"

"The affirmative is all that I needed to proceed, Captain," He nods curtly to the other Spock and his father, who is decidedly looking much better, but he has much more pressing matters to attend to, when they beam up and back into his personal quarters.

.x.

"_Yes_, goddamn it—doctor's orders. You and your alien are on _doctor's orders_ to fuck at least every five to six days, in order to continue associatin' those emotions with our ship, and effectively tether you to it, you fucker."

Jim beams. "That is the _best_ news I've heard all week, Bones."

"It's no permanent solution, but all our Tech heads are busy dealin' with some freaky malfunction or another, no part in thanks to you and pointy ears," The blonde looks frightfully innocent, but his doctor snorts, having none of that act. "You just better be glad I ain't tellin' your momma 'bout this."

The threat is immediately effective. "You _wouldn't_."

Bones fiddles with a hypo in his left hand. "Wanna bet?"

.x.

In the following weeks, it was found that trinkets he emotionally treasured, acquired from the people the captain held most dear, sufficed to keep Jim around, so he started collecting wearable memorabilia. The first was a magnificent and cloudy gem on a twine necklace he could under his regulation uniform, from Spock. The second was a pair of boots, pleasantly squeak-free, a help me-help you sort of gift from Lieutenant Uhura. The third was a brand new and probably strangely wired pad-communicator from Scotty, with engraved quotes of his favorite scientist of the twenty-third century, a one Roger Korby, on the back. Chekov gave him little things to hide in his boots, Sulu gave him specially patented salves that he was, miraculously, _not_ allergic to, and Bones tossed him an odd pen or piece of jewelry, and he treasured each piece of trash his friend supposedly disposed of, making a makeshift junk carcanet out of the things.

Still, the sex was probably the most _fun_ part of the deal. Until the call he'd been inevitably been dreading for weeks.

_His_ mother had been rather accepting, but mostly infuriated that she had been the last to know about his boyfriend—_"Mom, oh my god, can we just not be doing this right now—no I don't want to bring him home the next time you're on shore leave—Mom!"_

Sarek was considerably both easier and harder to deal with. The first sentiment was founded on the fact that he was not outwardly a man easy to derail or rile, so when he calmly said, "I have found that you and my son are romantically inclined," Jim simply straightened his spine and nodded, and did not incredibly fear for his life. In the same turn, because he knew what was really behind that cold and distant Vulcan exterior, he was inexplicably frightened of Spock's father.

"Yes'sir," He mushed politely, trying very hard to keep their eyes, even via holograph, aligned.

"I trust that you will not betray his trust and bond," Sarek's words are a warning and a blessing, but Jim hurries to affirm him.

"I will not, sir," Jim _does_ feel confident about that, and almost gapes when something that is probably a smile twitches at the man's lips. Their connection breaks, and he flops back, very tired.

In the back of his mind, he wonders why he had ever thought time-travel was a good idea, when he has so much _here_, in this world.


	4. Cognition

**A/N**: This is the final chapter of this short piece. I really had a great time writing it, so I hope that you guys enjoyed reading it as well. **WARNING** for explicit m/m relations in this segment. Also, sorry this is way later than I promised! I went out of town unexpectedly and just got back a couple days ago.

_Thanks to:_ All of my readers, favers, followers, etc. You guys are amazing, and I hope _Wanderlust_ was worth the ride!

* * *

_**Wanderlust**_

* * *

IV: Cognition

"_Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."_

-Edgar Allan Poe, _Eleonora_.

* * *

He startles awake, in a way that is becoming alarmingly frequent, but when he takes a look around, it quickly occurs to him that something is the matter. For one, things are too quiet. For another, this looks nothing like the captain's quarters on the starship Enterprise. Lastly, most pressing, his mother is digging her freshly manicured hands into his shoulder, hissing at him to wake up, and she hadn't done that since, well, long before he'd moved out of the house.

Suddenly realizing his predicament, he sighs, looking at the shortness of his limbs, and feels distraught. There are very few pleasurable things that occur for him at this age; childhood is simply not a _nightmare_ he wishes to relive, but it seems that his subconscious has decided otherwise. In the eerie sense of quiet that comes in the private dreams and thoughts of oneself, he waits patiently, growing almost bored. With a sense of familiarity, he reaches for a datapad at least two decades old, probably three or four, actually, since his mother had not brought another model in his then short lifetime. It's somewhat frightening, what he remembers, when he's not trying to, or even _wants_ to.

Winona is beautiful, but very thin. She has a fiery side, an icy side, and a motherly side. The side of a distant, blonde woman leaving him with an unfamiliar man and disappearing from earth so frequently that he oftentimes forgot her face. Bitterness crawls into the back of his probably five year old throat, and he wants to scream and cry, _You are not my father, and therefore do not rule me!_ In fact, he probably does, until his esophagus burns, the very need of such a cathartic act is the sign from his subconscious that this is something to be dealt with, _now_.

If this is a dream and not a nightmare, he hopes that his five year old self will become as large as a sky scraper, so that he might be able to pick his stepfather up and dangle him hundreds of feet above the ground, as it felt he'd done to him so many times, clutching him by the throat and spitting in his face, explicatives and saliva rolling off of his fieldwork-tanned skin like the dusty breeze of the surrounding Iowan plains. One time, he spits back to him, kicks him in the groin, and gets out for several days before Winona dutifully returns and rights her household, after the years of failure to do so.

Still, things remain untouched for so long that he grows confused. "What do I have to do, to do _something_ around here?" Young James Kirk questions oblivion, and oblivion deems it appropriate to respond at this juncture.

"What would you like to do?" It whispers, and his blue eyes are alight with imagination.

"I'd like to fly."

.x.

It's always horrendously frightening when Jim goes into a coma of any sort, because they can never be sure he'll be back. After the months with the time travel, then the months with the relationship troubles, and forthcoming complications from the issues initiated by the first hurdle, it had finally seemed like things were going back to normal on the ship. Which, of course, meant that Jim Kirk, a.k.a., the universe's eternal plaything, was subjected to the horrors of all sorts of alien lifeforms, sentient or otherwise, trying to kill him. A year, almost exactly, after Spock's initial rift in space-time, brought their captain to the medical bay in the wake of an injury-sparked concussion, leaving him impermanently between life and death in this coma, which had thus lasted for three days.

When the doctor witnessed the Vulcan clutching his friend's hand for dear life, he asked a question he'd long wanted the answer to. "What d'you suppose he dreams about?"

McCoy almost feels bad for asking, to see the pain etched into the dark eyes of the Science Officer. "Oftentimes, Jim's subconscious illustrations are centered around the oscillation of limbs and exertion of energy known as running. More often, he imagines becoming airborne, or flying."

"Why's that?" The doctor scowls, inherently translating his roundabout speech. The Vulcan clutches the tan hand in his lap and sounds very serious.

"He presumes that, while he is away from terra firma, he is infallible."

.x.

When he is off of the ground, his stepfather's grimy hands have no chance of even brushing against him. He smiles against the warmth of the sun, wondering if he could just go further. Beyond god's territory—into the universe, beyond the clouds. He will reign supreme, in his version of the world. But then, it dawns on him that he would be a terrible, flawed god, so he quickly dismisses that train of thought and refocuses again on how good this weightless disconnect feels, and thinks again of the wind brushing against his face, more motherly than his own had ever been in the past.

Blood whips behind him like little bombs, dripping from his fingers and nostrils in rivulets, and the dream, much like many others have been wont to do, transcends into a nightmare.

.x.

"His heart rate is elevated—it's not a _great_ sign, I'll admit, but it's better than havin' him lay there all still like a vegetable," McCoy grunts, tossing his gloves and mask off before slouching into a chair next to the Vulcan.

After a companionable silence, Spock speaks again, sounding very angry. "I am of ill opinion of Jim's stepfather."

"Nobody likes that ol' man, Spock," McCoy grimaced. "Leastways of all Jim."

.x.

Hospitals are the bane of Jim's existence, not only because he is in them so often, but mostly because the doctors are positively horrendous at their jobs. They ineffectually dismiss his allergies as colds, his psychiatrist believes he has an attention deficit disorder, but his teachers think he's a genius, and while all of these impressions are made, he's sitting here, counting the porous holes of the ceiling tiles.

This is probably his fault, he thinks first, and then, vehemently, remembers that it is _his stepfather's_ fault, not his own. On the edge of these loathing thoughts, he feels a strange presence, and tentatively approaches it, letting the dream push him where it so pleased.

The stranger, his logical mind provides, is a Vulcan.

.x.

"There may be sufficient cause for optimism after all," Spock whispers, clutching Jim's hand and looking like he may cry at any given moment. "He has begun to notice my presence, at the edge of his subconscious. I apologize if I am unable to follow our conversation, as this currently requires my full attention, doctor."

"Do what you gotta do, freak," Doctor McCoy does his best impression of wishing him good luck, and the half-Vulcan cannot help the twitch of a smile that tugs at his lips.

.x.

Dutifully, his appearance is childlike, something Jim has been curious about on many occasions, and in his dreams, longs for a like-minded companion. Someone who does not force him to play sports like the other boys, and understands the theory of reciprocal numbers as well as Einstein's theory of relativity, instead of dismissing these valuable jewels as ancient history, things to be memorized and shortly forgotten after a test.

"Do Vulcans speak English?" In delirium, Jim has asked him this question a fair number of times.

"There is a modicum of English standard spoken according to regulation by the Federation and its' allied planets. In short, the answer is affirmative." He feels very strange, in foreign clothes, things very different from the robes donned frequently in his youth, but this is how the captain sees him as a boy.

"You're weird," Jim wrinkles his nose and then beams, offering a hand, seemingly disregarding of his touch-telepathic nature. "I like it."

.x.

The tour-de-force that is the journey around Jim's mind is just as enlightening as it is shocking. He's surprised that someone with no inherent telepathic abilities had been able to put up barriers very strong to his probing, for so long. Scientific theorems, literary genius, and mathematic epiphanies, social commentary fit for kings—it's all there, hidden behind the constructs of his imbued friendliness. He's an honest boy—an honest _man_, really—reckless, and fiercely protective. Through this whole event, he has found no reason to disentangle their fingers.

"For some reason, you feel like you belong here," Jim notes, long after their pace has slowed, at the cusp of memories he knows will not be pleasant for either of them. "I want you to stay. Over here. I don't want to go in there."

Spock's heart pangs, and he replies very carefully. "I _want_ to belong here. You are my beloved. If you will allow me, we will frequent each other's minds as though they are own. However, we must face _that_ before you will wake from this sprawling illusion."

Tears flood those blue eyes, and he feels horrifically upset, almost violently ill together with him—_t'hy'la, do not fear, we will face it hand-in-hand_—but he must stand by his judgment.

"No!" Jim tries to tug, but the force of his mind and his literal, physical strength, a reminder the man-child's mind should know quite well, is superior.

"We _must_, Jim," He whispers, his cheeks hot with tears that are a reflection of the other boy's. "Please trust me."

After a long moment of a searing search, the human's fingers clasp his own even more fiercely. "You must promise to never let go."

Spock does not hesitate. "I promise."

.x.

Uhura and McCoy are far more worried than they let on. This is the doctor's seventh cup of coffee that evening, and the communications officer's third shift of the day. When others start to gather, worried and tired, in the sickbay, the dark young woman explains, to the best of her ability what is happening.

"I know Spock looks like he's either meditating or dozing, but that's because he's gotten inside. Probably no big surprise to anybody, but they've been tentatively bonded for a while. Right now, this—it's gonna determine a, whether their relationship will stand the test of time, and b, whether we get our captain back in a sound mind and body. Of course, the second condition relies entirely on the first, so that's that."

"Jesus fuck," The doctor curses, and sputters, because his drink momentarily goes down the wrong pipe. "Couldn't have been put any less pressure on our poor hearts, could you?"

"Unfortunately, those are the facts, doctor," Uhura grimaces. "Either he succeeds, or we all lose."

.x.

This is the darkest, most dismal part of James Kirk's brain. Here, injuries, hurtful words, and dark nightmares play on an endless loop, shaping him into who he is. Bottles crack on the back of his head—a trip to the hospital.

Fingers break, a bloodied nose. Bullying, alcoholism, abandonment. Spock wants to vomit, as does Jim, but they trudge on, absolutely adamant on keeping their sweaty palms interlocked through their small fingers, but their fingers are getting larger. Their heights are changing. The growth is gradual, and the nightmares grow more fervent.

At the end of a long trail of hurt is a door accurately labeled, and they are the ages, heights, and sizes they should be.

It reads: _Worst Fears_.

Spock, horrified, wonders what could ever be worse than the things he has just seen. For one brief moment, his hand twitches, and he can feel Jim's accepted loss, but just as the blonde is about to pull away, he grips his calloused fingers even tighter. "I promised not to let go. You must also keep this promise."

Jim seems absolutely floored, almost crying again, and it breaks him more than the eyes of a child he had been no more familiar with than a stranger, but these—_these_ eyes, he knows very well. "You really love me."

He is careful to give him a squeeze that will not break his hand in the intensity of his grasp. "More than you shall ever know, Jim."

They step through the threshold.

.x.

"I _hate_ waitin'," McCoy spits, venting just to have something to do. His foot taps impatiently, his dark blue eyes fill with waves of emotion, and the Russian next to him sideswipes getting splashed with a fresh cup of hot coffee in a momentary dodge.

"You have said zis fifteen times, I believe," Chekov notes, sipping at his own coffee gingerly. "Ze nurse informs me zat you have not slept. I shall watch ze Keptin."

"Not like I don't _wanna_ sleep," The doctor grouses roughly. "I _can't_, not with these two idiots fightin' for their lives in there."

"We must wish them ze best, yes," He pats the older man with a rocky, crooked smile. "I believe in the Keptin, and Mizter Spock."

"Me too, kid," McCoy broods, sipping at his coffee again with a terrible temper. "Me too."

.x.

For a time, Spock is almost certain that they have walked out of Kirk's mind and into his own, but no matter the circumstance, he blindly falters and clasps his captain's hand. _We promised_.

Vulcan is destroyed, but he then realizes the tragedy is getting remarkably less broad and more personal. Earth falls next, and James is absolutely powerless to stop it. Then, beyond that, every member of the Enterprise, brutally captured, tortured slowly, and then mercilessly beheaded, and he can do nothing but weep and scream and cry. His throat is raw, his voice is absolutely shot. The cruelty does not end.

A live rape of Uhura. They both vomit and weep as the man touches her, rips off her clothes and violently bruises her skin, and then sexually assaults her.

Chekov is crucified. Sulu is taken to the guillotine. Scotty's limbs are removed, and then, when their tormentors find him cling to life, they throw the man, screaming, into a fire.

McCoy's death is hardest, because it is the hardest for Jim. First he is tortured for information about his captain, who yells and yells—_tell him, you stupid, insolent, insubordinate asshole, tell him so you can save yourself_—and goes ignored. The doctor is faithful even as they gag him, bind him, whip him, poison him, positively _dehumanize him_, and it is all they can do, rightfully, to kill him with a brief phaser's touch to the temple.

When the men reach to take Spock, he fights, fights against the imaginary nightmares, and his hand is slipping every moment, despite his fervent desire to stop the terrors. "You can't, you _can't_, you _promised_!" Jim's voice is absolutely destroyed and broken and Spock weeps with all his heart, emotion spilling from him in droves.

"Jim, you _must not let them_ take me, or our hands will be separated," Spock sounds calmer than he feels, desperately clinging to his friend, his brother, his lover, his _t'hy'la_. "Jim. Jim, please!"

"I _can't_!" Jim sobs, but does not let go, even though he feels their fingers peeling apart every second. "_Spock_!" His name comes out as a sick wail.

"_Please!_" The world around them shakes and wind seems to be against them here in this illusion, and their tears fly in unison, but he still hasn't let go, so he keeps pressing with insistence, forcing his feeling against him so strongly that he knows Jim can hear nothing but his echoing plea.

.x.

Gasping, they hurtle from dream to reality in the sickbay, surrounded by familiar faces, tears streaming down their faces, sweaty hands clasping tightly—even more tightly than before, and they just kept swallowing air wildly, like it was going to disappear.

"Jesus—_Jesus,_" McCoy breathes, standing and spilling coffee all over himself and the floor without a care in the world. "Fuck, both of you, you're gonna go into shock, with all that hyperventilatin'. Calm down and breathe, or _science_ will have to intervene!" He pages Chapel, he pages _Uhura_, for god's sake, and starts going to work on them, forcing them to take in air normally.

"Shit," Jim breathes, still breathing heavily. "I can't believe I took him in there…is he okay?"

"You've been in a coma four days, and the first thing out of your mouth is concern for your green-blooded boyfriend—guess I should be proud of you, or somethin'." The doctor runs all the tests, checks him and pats and prods and the blonde flimsily swats him away.

Those blue eyes are bewildered and apologetic, for what, his doctor doesn't know. "I just took him somewhere no one was supposed to see, Bones. Shit. Just…_stop_ poking me for a second, and make sure he's alright, yeah?"

Harsh but honorable, McCoy grumbles and heeds his 'order'. Recognizing a problem, he performs an emergency breathing procedure on the scarcely breathing and living man, by Vulcan standards. He rushes Spock to a biobed, and has a nurse finish up with his friend, despite his desires. It's clear to him who, at the moment, requires more immediate medical attention.

.x.

When things have finally settled enough to speak of the elephant in the room, the five closest gather with their lightly meditating first officer and drowsy captain in the sickbay. Scott, Uhura, McCoy, Chekov, Sulu—they are family to the pair just as much as Winona Kirk, the deceased Amanda Grayson, and Sarek.

Spock, surprisingly, is the first to speak, breaking from his healing trance to join them. "We are officially bonded." They momentarily cheer, and then turn to their grim-looking captain.

"It wasn't easy," Kirk admits sheepishly. "Look, basically, it was a fucked up, bumpy road, and I'm sure _we_," His gaze is very insistently directed at his first officer. "Will have plenty of time to discuss things further _in private_." This is a clue for his brass to cease harassing him for details of the exchange. If he wants to tell them, if will most certainly be after he's sorted things out with Spock first. "I would like to congratulate you all for your fine work while Commander Spock and myself were out of commission. Of course, that's what's going in my official reports." He then relaxes, and smiles more genuinely. "Thanks, you assholes. We got through it by the scruff of our necks, yet again."

Everyone in the conference room laughs, even the Vulcan. "Aye, it was mighty slippery for a time there, cap'n. Mister Sulu almost chewed out a yeoman for insultin' his steerin' skills, y'see."

"Scotty, you traitor," Sulu hissed, rolling his eyes and sinking into his chair.

"You are a fine helmsman, Mister Sulu," The captain reassures him, the teasing nature of his usual tone creeping in and infecting the rest of them with good humor. "So, any more juicy gossip?"

"Happy to announce you'll probably be marrying some friends of mine when you're well and able, captain," Uhura winks. "Turns out a little crisis is all it takes to seal the deal."

"Yikes," This part of his job description always makes him happy, but simultaneously freaks him out, if only by the sheer number of people he is entitled to wed aboard his ship every year. "What's this, the tenth one this month?"

"It's only the fifth, you big baby," She quips, and he snorts.

"That's enough, isn't it?" They keep catching up for a time, falling back into easy routine, before McCoy declares visiting hours over, and has Chapel assist him in bringing the boys back to medical. Once there, he speaks first to his friend.

Jim tells him of the horrors he'd subjected himself and Spock to, and shakily admits that he might not have survived if not for him, so McCoy agrees to stop threatening to kill the Vulcan—for _today_, anyways, Jim laughs at that—and brings him to the room that had always been big enough for two.

"If you two so much as _piss_ on my beds while I'm not looking, I swear I'll have you spayed," McCoy gives one last warning before sweeping out into the hall.

For a long while, Spock continues to meditate, so Jim falls into a doze, but his break from the trance startles the human awake, too.

"Hey," Jim greets, feeling altogether sort of awkward. "What a year, huh? Time travel, particle displacement, temporary anchoring, and long walks in mind beaches." The last part is a really terrible joke, and he can't even falsely laugh about it. "Ah, shit, I didn't mean to say it like that."

"Yes you did," Spock replies easily, and his significant other feels a flush rise in his cheeks.

"Yeah, I did," The captain replies, sinking back into his pillows and flinging an arm out like he expected it to go ignored, and is pleasantly surprised to have the touch-telepath familiarly clasp his hand. "I'm sorry," His eyes are dark and hooded as he looks into Spock's deep pools of emotion, searching for disappointment and disapproval from him.

Instead, he finds and feels a vast sort of unfathomable happiness and indescribable love, and it chills his spine. "Do not be." He pauses, and then continues. "When my calculations misplaced me in alternate future, a much older version of you took care of me," Spock tells him this, although he'd already sort of _felt_ the gist of things from him when he'd first arrived. "Much as you feel about the ambassador, I felt an inexplicable gravitation towards him, as though we already knew very much of each other's presence and friendship. I was startled, when we melded thoughts quite by accident, to find that he had been in love with that universe's Spock."

The thought both unnerves him and sets his blood on fire. Quickly quelling those emotions, he realizes it's not right to be jealous of another version of yourself. "Yeah, I mean…in the one, I went to, we were, well, the same age as you and me, but really different. We were _civilians_, we adopted a child, and our parents were alive."

This time, Spock's jealousy flares, and Jim has to snort back to hold back his laughter. "Yet, when I returned, I found that, regardless of what I had seen," His fingers move and Jim feels warmer. "There was no other James Kirk that made me feel quite like you."

He completely, wholeheartedly agrees. "Yeah, well, I am one of a kind," His mouth blurts, but his mind truthfully admits, _You're the only Spock for me._

"Indeed you are," Spock murmurs good-naturedly, but it's immediately apparent that he'd confidently heard that last thought. They share a brief but tantalizing kiss that must be broken, Jim bemoans, or else they will face the horrendous and completely ineffectual wrath of a one Leonard McCoy in the morning. Deciding that there will plenty of time for that later, they smile and fall back into their separate but connected restful states.

.x.

Kirk moans, pressing his face into the cushions and arching back against the member pressed into him. He's lying on his side, but Spock's supporting much of his weight, and every time he presses in, a little deeper, sensual and rough and _fuck_ if it doesn't feel amazing, beady, sweaty precum glistens on the head of his member, and trying not to touch himself is like hell on earth.

Spock is clearly amused at his visible predicament. "Shall I relieve you, captain?" He sounds so clinical, pegging him into a mattress, making him croon and howl, long pale fingers sifting through golden-brown locks if only for a moment, and Kirk won't admit that sort of turns him on even more.

"Ahh, shit," He contemplates saying no out of stubbornness for three-point-five seconds, and then grabs and bites and licks the half-Vulcan's dusty nipples before murmuring out, "Fuck, yeah. Commander," He bites out, and makes no comment when he feels the member inside of him throb in response.

Okay, so, maybe both of them find this dangerous 'flirting with rank' thing kind of a huge turn on. Indeterminate pulsations later, Spock pulls out before he spills, and Kirk makes a mess of himself and his First Officer's chest, but he doesn't care, languidly lapping circles around his pointed ears. "As that is a known pleasure center you are well aware of, I would advise you to stop titillating this erogenous zone, as I have to report to my post in one hour, approximately."

"And my shift's in thirty minutes. Shower?" Spock growls, and it's something between agreement and exasperation.

.x.

They are on a deck, simply observing stars, and their hands are loosely laced together. Bones had peeked in to chew them out about an hour ago, but since then, Uhura had been helping them out (or rather, had been bribed to) by keeping people out for a couple hours. Sitting against each other, Kirk is the first to pose a question.

"Do you think we'll be like any of them? Any of the others?" He refers to other Kirks and Spocks they have encountered, in their mishaps from the prior year.

"I find it paramount to, as you would say, 'wait and see'," Spock replies, scientifically. Jim's blue eyes twinkle, catching the light of the stars, and he clutches his hand ever tighter.

"Yeah," Jim whispers. "We will."


End file.
